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The Nut Job stars Will Arnet, Liam Neeson and Katherine Heigl but even big stars cannot help the lackluster story or add life to the animated film.

Film making 2/5 Video 5/5 Audio 5/5 Bonus Features 2/5

Recommendation 2/5 Stars

Will Arnet stars as Surly, a disenchanted squirrel who lives almost alone and steals what he needs to survive life in the park. The park is also home to a group of animals including leader Racoon who is voiced by Liam Neeson and Andie played by Katherine Heigl.

The park animals work all year long to store enough food in their tree for winter under the direction of Racoon and with hero squirrel Grayson played by Brendan Frasier. Andie and Grayson are tasked with leading the search for food but Surly only gets in their way.

When Andie and Grayson try to take on a new nut cart that moved into the park Surly gets in the way and winds up destroying the tree. His attempt to steal the nuts winds up with the nut cart’s propane tank igniting the tree and all its stored food.

Surly works at following the nut cart vendor back to his store to get the nuts while Grayson and Andie are sent out once again to find food for the park animals. Surly finds out that the nut shop is now owned by a mobster recently released from jail who is planning to rob the bank across the street.

The nut shop is their hideout and base of operations for their tunnel and they are going to replace the bags of money with bags of nuts. Surly with the help of his one friend Buddy and the guard dog King who only gets picked on by the robbers stop the thieves.

The Nut Job does a good enough job with the story but just about every joke falls flat with no really funny moments and everything being very transparent. All the major plot points are easily seen coming and even the major tree destruction is so obvious as the major tipping point for Surly against the park animals.

In the end of course Surly changes his mind and helps the park animals get the goods but even this last ditch effort fails to save the day for the film. The Nut Job just does not excite enough or have enough comedy to raise it to rental quality much less a collection addition.

Audio and video quality are very good and as usual for recent CGI films is almost perfect with no major or even minor problems to impair the film. Colors are great and the audio has very good surround but with a lackluster plot that fails to entertain the audio and video just don’t matter that much.

Bonus content is also lacking as much as the film making with a couple animated shorts that predate the film itself and some making of features. The two animated shorts are actually shorts following the films story while the making of features are lacking in actual entertaining content.

The Nut Job just falls flat on all fronts so it’s no surprise that this is not getting much of a recommendation for a rental or movie worth buying.